City Council meetings are notoriously boring with the occasional spat of sparks flying. Most are barely attended as simple matters merit little attention from citizens. But when an issue arises that does get the attention of citizens, many schedule their time to appear and speak their view on whatever the issue is before city council.
That is a right of citizens and city ordinance recognizes that in the procedures to implement ordinances and changes to ordinances, scheduling time for citizen input during hearings on the issue.
If that does not happen, citizens are being denied their right to speak before council and we run the risk of shutting citizen out, subjugating ourselves to 7 people elected to office.
Citizens do not take lightly to having their rights trampled on as the denial of the right to speak before city council ends up doing.
Be it by accident or whatever, we saw just this happen at the March 4, 2013 Vancouver City Council meeting where several citizens came out to speak on proposed changes to VMC. 17.32 and ordinance changes to 17.08 and 17.34 as well as Title 22 of VMC, concerning the abatement of unfit dwellings, buildings, structures and premises.
According to the compliant lodged by Carolyn Crain,
“The city attorney and staff made a decision to alter section 6 and some portions of section 7 after the first reading and prior to the hearing which by procedure requires the hearing be rescheduled. It also by procedure requires a re-reading of the first reading into the record or in essence it scraps/discards the original first reading and creates a new first reading of the revised language. At that March 4th hearing / non-hearing now a re-reading of the first reading the council made an error in deciding that those citizens who were present to speak on the subject could not speak after all and needed to return for the new hearing which had a new date set of March 18th 2013. This disenfranchised those citizens in their right to address council on an agenda item which is what it became when it was set back and proceeded to be re-read as a first reading on March 4th in council meeting.”
Also filing their own complaints were Vancouver residents Penny Ross and Dennis Henry, in case city council tries to disregard Mrs. Crain’s complaint since she lives a couple blocks outside the city limits.
What happened on March 4th is clear, citizens were scheduled to speak on this proposed change to city municipal code were denied that right and instead of scheduling two separate meetings where citizens could express their view, they were granted one, the meeting where the final was to be taken, March 18, 2013.
The ordinance was approved this evening with what appeared to be little attention paid to citizen views.
While this proposed change does not reach the level of something like the CRC, citizen concerns should heard before such changes are made and along with being heard, taken into consideration before approval or denial by city council, regardless of the merits of the ordinance.
At the March 13, 2013 city council meeting, the disenfranchisement was brought up during the citizen forum and City Attorney Ted Gathe admitted council was in error in how they handled it, but no action was taken nor was a second hearing scheduled to comply with written procedure.
We cannot take this lightly as we have seen increasingly that government at all levels is moving away from the traditional role of “The government of the people, by the people and for the people” as well as what is stated in the very beginning of the Washington State Constitution where it says, “All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.”
We are seeing more and more where the people are being dictated to with the expression from some we elect that once in office, they were elected to act on their personal views, not on the views of those they are elected to represent.
Such an attitude is seen in a comment left under a Columbian article (since removed apparently, but a copy was saved) concerning the ongoing controversy over the CRC and light rail by 49th Legislative District Representative, Democrat Jim Moeller where he expressed,
“It doesn’t really matter if Clark County is ready for or wants light-rail – it’s coming and it’s currently part of the proposal.”
That the votes of Clark County voted down the proposal of light rail by a 2 to 1 margin and have since been denied another vote, the proposal was brought back up before local government and commissions and approved.
We saw it when Mayor Tim Leavitt, after blatantly lying his way into office, tried to further limit citizen input on CRC & light rail saying city council has nothing to do with the decision, even though 3 members of the city council sat on the board that chose the ‘locally preferred alternative,’ light rail.
And now we see citizens being disenfranchised again by the city council and Mayor Leavitt as once again, citizens are denied the right of their voices heard and heeded in the adoption of an ordinance change.
In the complaint lodged by Mrs. Crain she asks for “a sanction or corrective action of the Mayor to be taken on the part of the council with regards to the blocking of the citizens right to the three minutes that should have been afforded us to speak on this agenda item. I expect reprimands for the same be placed in the employment files of both the city attorney Ted Gathe and the city manager Eric Holmes.”
Whether or not proper action will be taken remains to be seen. Given that previous complaints lodged against this Mayor were cast aside, I won’t be a bit surprised to see ‘Teflon’ Tim Leavitt slide by again.
